2006 Italy midfield, had Pirlo and Gattuso on their prime plus Perotta who makes up a lot of ground with his tireless running. DDR was an upcoming star as well. I would not say the current midfield is better than the 2006.
It was pretty much like this, with Perrotta playing more as a LM than as a winger. Perrotta is an average player indeed but he was actually effective in that formation, he did his job. He allowed Grosso to get forward a lot while covering some ground to enable Pirlo to concentrate on dictating the play.
Yeah but it was always a little static for international play... although that was probably the midfields fault. 96 was pretty fluid attack but we got ambushed by brilliant Czech generation and choked to Germany.
This 2012, looks the most dynamic even though individual class doesn't match up.